It is now raining, which is a mercy as I have spent the last few very fine days in the garden. The asparagus is wonderful. (This vegetable is, contrary to popular myth, the easiest plant ever to grow. I planted seeds 19 years ago, ate the first small crop 17 years ago, and for the past fifteen years have had three good cuts a week from May Day to Midsummer Day from a bed 8 foot by 18 inches, all on the strength of weeding it once a year and shoving on a bit of garden compost each spring. I love gardens, but am not gardener - I work on the good results/minimum effort system with lots of wild areas. My other vegetable is the equally easy Jerusalem artichoke. Father does new potatoes and tomatoes.
My idea of gardening is to weed a small bed OR plant a couple of things OR prune something small, then sit down with a good book to contemplate my handiwork. (I adopt the same system with housework, except that I find it is perfectly possible to hoover with a book in hand, and most other jobs can be done with an eye on the television.)
Anyway, back to the garden: as I said, my view of outdoors is mainly contemplative. My niece, Jessica (11), has other view and positively forces me to play tennis. Since anyone who can hit a ball can play tennis better than I, you will understand that my skill in this direction is, despite sharing a birthday with John McEnroe, not exactly great. Personally I blame it on Miss Wright - truly terrifying pint-size games mistress (read the barely fictionalised portrait in Kathleen Rowntree's "Tell Mrs. Poole I'm Sorry') who took one look at the 11 year old me and said "Turner girl: I taught your mother; I taught your aunt. Turner girl." in tones of utmost contempt. (You must bear in mind that the aunt in question was my father's sister so we are talking a certain lack of sporting ability on both sides, but with a little encouragement I'm sure I could have risen a level or so above totally useless all the way up to moderately useless.) Her dismissal of my little sister was still briefer - just "Turner." followed by a snort.
Anyway, Jess (who has inherited the family way with a ball, but a certain agility from her father who was in youth a good enough distance runner to train with county class runners) has a more understanding games teacher and retains her enthusiasm, not to mention a certain optimism about the benefits of practice, makes me play tennis. We are not good, neither of us can return a ball with any degree of accuracy, but we can both serve beautifully. I now have a very painful right shoulder through this unaccustomed exercise. And this is why I am grateful for the rain this evening.
On the subject of contemplating the landscape (or gardening as I call it) I thought I would share the views from our garden.
View to the North
View to the East
View to the South
View to the West.
lizdavies
I've been gardening too - or rather picking up the leaves that should have been picked up last November, in the front bit. The best thing about our garden is probably that it is too small to need much active gardening - just big enough to give me an excuse to potter about in the sun from May to September - and much to small to attempt to play sport in.
Even though I did develop to moderately useless at tennis, and even won the Veteran Ladies Pat Ball Association of Cairo's Clay Court Championships in 1996. You ask Shelley, the other entrant.